


Quench

by linguamortua



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Genre: Banter, Character Study, M/M, Meeting the Parents, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 18:24:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16645475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linguamortua/pseuds/linguamortua
Summary: ‘How much longer will I have to spoil him? Soon he’ll be away at university. There’ll be girlfriends.’ Annella paused. ‘Boyfriends. Someone to take him away from me.’‘I’m sure that won’t be for a while yet,’ Oliver said, lying tremendously for he knew that Elio was likely to do appallingly well for himself at college.





	Quench

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asuralucier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/gifts).



Coming around the corner from the garden and thinking only about lemonade and ice, Oliver was surprised to see Annella alone in the kitchen. She was folding dough with the competent hands of a woman who knew what she was doing. Silently, Oliver slipped around the doorway and leaned against the wall to watch. The afternoon sun threw his shadow long across the floor. It caught her attention.

‘Hungry, darling?’ Annella asked him without looking up from her work. Then she looked. ‘Oh, _scusa_ , Oliver.’ She smiled at him. ‘But are you hungry, though?’

‘Thirsty, rather,’ Oliver said. He went to hover by the fridge. ‘May I?’

‘Anything you like, in our house.’

Oliver opened the fridge to find a tall jug of lemonade. He poured himself a glass and drank it straight off. He had pedalled hard back up the hill today, thinking about Elio, the wretch, and his boyish attempts at seduction. Pouring a second glass, he went to perch on the stone countertop by the window. Annella threw a handful of flour over her board in a graceful arc, and reached for the jar of raisins. She held it out to him; he took a few.

‘How was your work today?’

‘It was fine—no, it was good,’ said Oliver. He grinned. ‘I solved a problem, I think.’

‘You’re a hard worker.’

‘I try to be, at least. For the professor’s sake, if not the sake of my poor book.’ He ate the raisins. Annella was working handfuls of them into the soft dough. He looked around the kitchen, at the motes of flour hanging in the sunbeams. It was so quiet today. The professor away at a conference, Mafalda taking a day away to see his sister. Elio, who knew where. Running around with that girl, maybe. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ Oliver asked.

‘No, no, no need.’ Annella waved her floured hand. ‘We’ll just eat cheese and fruit and bread for dinner. It’s so warm, whew.’

‘Elio should be helping you.’

‘He’s a child!’ Annella laughed. ‘Besides, you know how he is—endless patience for some things, useless at others.’

‘Really?’ Oliver asked. He knew very well, but he wanted to hear Elio’s mother talking about him. He wanted to talk about Elio. 

‘Mmm.’ Annella turned the dough into a smooth sphere, tucking the sides under until it was stretched taut. ‘Such a clever boy. But, you know, a mind of his own.’

‘I like that about him,’ Oliver volunteered. 

‘It’s good for him to have you around. He’s around old people all summer.’

‘Please, Mrs P, you’re not old.’

‘But you call me Mrs! And anyway, one’s parents—it’s not the same as being with young people,’ she insisted. ‘He needs to explore. He needs to be challenged. Oh, pass me that bowl?’ Oliver looked around and saw a deep, round dish by him. He slid off the counter to bring it to Annella. ‘And now grease it.’ She nodded towards the butter dish.

Oliver hadn’t a single thought of baking or cooking, but he had seen his own mother grease pie dishes and so he remembered how to use a bit of the paper wrap to rub butter all over the inside of the dish.

‘There,’ he said, pleased somehow to do something with his hands. Annella smiled at him and turned her dough into the dish in a neat gesture. She spun the bowl on the counter with a flourish.

‘So, I still remember how to make bread,’ she said. She took it to the oven, and as she crossed the floor Oliver watched the flicker of shadows and light around her feet. There was movement deeper inside the house; a long vertical line of shadow that moved forward a little and then bobbed back. Oliver turned towards the window so that neither Annella or Elio would see him smile.

‘You’ll spoil us,’ said Oliver. And then added, wickedly, ‘and you’ll spoil that boy.’ On the floor, the shadow twitched indignantly. Annella laughed.

‘How much longer will I have to spoil him? Soon he’ll be away at university. There’ll be girlfriends.’ She paused. ‘Boyfriends. Someone to take him away from me.’

‘I’m sure that won’t be for a while yet,’ Oliver said, lying tremendously for he knew that Elio was likely to do appallingly well for himself at college. Annella wiped down the counter, and then she looked inside the fridge.

‘Shows what you know. It seems like only yesterday he was a baby.’

‘Was he a good baby?’

‘No, not at all! He was a terror. He had to be held and sung to for hours and hours.’

‘Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.’

‘Mafalda!’ said Elio loudly, coming into the kitchen at speed. ‘Is there juice?’

‘Mafalda has a holiday,’ his mother told him. She gently touched his cheek with her floury hand. He wriggled, half-resentful, half-enjoying the attention.

‘But is there juice?’

‘There’s lemonade,’ Oliver said, holding up his half-full glass.

‘Okay,’ Elio said. He came over and took the glass straight out of Oliver’s hand, then drank his lemonade. He looked challengingly at Oliver all the while. Over Elio’s curly head, Oliver and Annella caught each other’s eyes. One of Annella’s dark eyebrows lifted. _See?_ she seemed to say. _Here’s someone taking my boy away already._

‘We were just talking about you,’ Oliver said.

‘Well, I don’t care. You can talk about whatever you like.’ Elio said. He put the glass in the sink, then he turned on the tap and messily splashed water all over his face and half the kitchen floor, too.

‘We were talking about how rude you are.’

‘We were,’ Annella agreed. She and Oliver laughed in unison. Elio prickled, his hackles going up like a grumpy, gawky young cat. He hated to be laughed at. He went to Annella, then, and put his head on her shoulder.

‘She likes me more than she likes you,’ Elio said petulantly. The two of them indulged his childishness. Oliver stopped laughing and Annella hugged him. Yes, it was hard for him, here all summer. Oliver could see the truth of it; a precocious boy, indulged too often but loved so much. And it was clear, too, that Annella understood that Oliver had no desire to hurt her boy, and so she had let him know in her tactful way that she knew what was happening in her house and condoned it.

‘I’m going to swim,’ Oliver said abruptly, concerned that his tenderness might be showing in his face. That would never do. It wasn’t _fun_.

‘Do whatever you like,’ Elio said.

‘Well, you can come too.’

‘Go on, darling,’ Annella said. ‘You’ve been hunched over your music all day.’

‘Fine, I’ll get my shorts.’ Elio disappeared out of the kitchen, deliberately jostling Oliver’s shoulder on the way past. Oliver stretched out and ruffled Elio’s hair, to sounds of indignation. Then the boy was gone, his footsteps crashing away upstairs, whistling an aria. Annella was washing her hands in the deep stone sink. She dried them on a towel.

‘Lemonade for me, too,’ she said, pouring herself some. ‘And my book, in the shade.’ She paused at the door, looking like she wanted to say something more. Instead, Oliver took two long strides across the flagstones and hugged her. He had to crane down awkwardly to do it. She held him back one-handed, lemonade out to one side.

‘Elio’s a lucky kid,’ he said to her quietly, and kissed her cheek as if she was his own mother.

‘Yes, he is,’ Annella told him. ‘You boys be good.’ She slipped out into the garden, to read under her favourite tree. Oliver stood in the kitchen and waited for Elio, alone.


End file.
